남한의 보훈과 통일

Abstract

Could the meaning of North Korea to us be verbalized by the wounds and injuries of sergeant Ha Jea-heon sustained in Cheonan. In this article, the legal status of North Korea that is the factor behind several open-ending inter-Korean conflicts as well as the reason for continuing division will be discussed. Additionally, in order to suggest the aspect of veterans while preparing for unification, this paper also analyzing the veteran system of East and West Germany which are already unified, while considering that we have living veterans such as Ha Jae-heon who is carrying the wounds of battle while keeping national scars of the 6.25 Korean War in mind. Since the Veterans Affairs System plays a future-oriented position in securing the values to be persuaded while verifying and commemorating the facts of the past, after unification the veterans will play an important role in the changes of past 70 years between North and South as well as their difference in the perception of history. In the past, the paradigm of inter-Korean relations was based on national security and major importance was given to military security. As there is a new global trend that focuses on human security, the unified Korea’s veteran system should be designed accordingly. For this shift in paradigm and the concept of a unified veteran system, in the first place, a new appraisal is necessary for the people who have been buried in history all through the time due to the ideological and regime confrontations between the two Koreas. Moreover, regarding the North Korean related men of national merit which has been resurfaced with the case of Yaksan Kim Won-bong, it can be stated that there is a necessity to review the existing system which evaluates the honorary veterans according to the anti-communist perspective which is categorizing between success (공-功) and fail (과-過). Lastly, the veteran system of unified Korea should be improved further from the existing which is only providing the guarantee of living, and for this purpose new education and commemoration projects are needed to raise awareness among citizens.